Children

Children attending the CRS Education Centre at Topsia now have new uniforms, shoes and socks, wool cardigans for the winter, lunch boxes and water bottles thanks to funds raised by children at Ashgate Primary School in Derby. The school room will also be equipped with a ceiling fan and shoe rack. This follows the visit of two teachers from Ashgate to Topsia earlier this year as part of the Derby Diocese partnership.

CRS has added a new urban location to its portfolio of projects: Brace Bridge. Beside the railway tracks at Brace Bridge station is Naya Bustee, a slum community of about 700 predominantly Muslim families.

CRS is partnering with a community based organization called Right Track to support this community. So far an education and women’s programmes have been started with the plan to add a health programme in due course. Find out more

Teachers from CRS’s urban and rural projects were invited to St Paul’s Cathedral in early September to celebrate Teachers’ Day. The Assistant Presbyter of the Cathedral and members of the CRS Executive Committee led the celebrations to thank the teachers for their service – then everyone enjoyed sharing cake!

In February, CRS Director, Rig David, together with two members of the CRS Executive Committee, the Treasurer, Kevin Roberts, and Member, Probir Ghose, visited Jharkhand.

The multipurpose community centre in Gumla, funded by a donation from the UK Friends Legacy Fund and completed in 2014, is used for a variety of activities to benefit about 250 families in the area. They were met by nearly 150 children from the Swarwagin school and their teachers, who were so excited to receive visitors from so far away.

Rig says “It was wonderful to see the new building put to good use. It is made from concrete and has multiple rooms, as well as toilets – a vast improvement on the two-roomed hut made of bamboo and mud that was used before. The children clearly enjoyed playing in the safe surroundings around the centre.”

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Cathedral Relief Service (CRS) in Kolkata supports poor and marginalised people in the city’s slums and rural villages further afield through education, health and empowerment programmes, and special projects.